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THE PASSING OF 
MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 




J/\MES Sv^AMU 



"Remember, Caroline, I am a\ 
that is left to you of her!" 



The 

Passing of Mother^s 

Portrait 

RoswELL Mcr^ Field 

With biographical introduction by 
J. Christian Bay 



1 9 



I 



Trovillion Private Press 
at the sign of the silver horse 

HERRIN, ILLINOIS 



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BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 



6 

Copy 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

Three hundred years ago several natural- 
ists discovered that plants develop vigorously 
when grown in soil containing their own 
ashes. This interests us in connection with 
the study of plant nutrition. But in a sym- 
bolical way it compels meditation. Some man 
drops one piece of literary work after another 
on the broad acres of a lifetime. Like flowers 
this work inspires his generation with the 
sense of beauty and joy. Then he drops his 
pen, and a busy world, always alert for new 
things and young voices, gradually loses the 
memory of his presence and influence and 
e\'en forgets the fragrance of the flowers he 
raised. 

But the soil tenaciously retains its elements 
of precious fertility. Energy may be dissipated, 
but lif€ continues. A vivifying remembrance 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

time and again may act like a mild rain and 
bring new life to the seed covered by the dust 
of time. 

Such is the fate of the little book we now 
reproduce for the grandchildren of those who 
first enjoyed it. This story literally arises out 
of almost a half century of latent life and 
brings back to a world of strong realism the 
vision of an ideal. Roswell Martin Field, in a 
happy moment, saw this ideal and left his 
dramatic unfolding of this vision as a flower 
in the literary garden of our Middle West. 
Did we since forget that the memory of 
Mother, and of all she implies, is a perennial 
without which no family garden would burst 
into bloom? Far from it, for in that case all 
social organization would have collapsed. But 
surely we have buried too much of our tradi- 
tion as we drifted into the present era of 
senseless impulse. 

This being indisputable, we reprint The 
Passing of Mother's Portrait in an effort to 
join those who would continue the miracle of 

viii 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

life, the coherence and soUdarity of the family 
group, as our most precious personal and 
national tradition. 

The regional literature of the Middle West 
found its prophet in Hamlin Garland. His 
Crumbling Idols (1894) hailed a develop- 
ment of local talent: young writers who 
picked their themes, milieu and characters 
from native soil. This movement, however, 
began much earlier, in Ohio. It spread to 
Indiana, first by newspapers, later by mod- 
est but home-grown books, and Meredith 
Nicholson traced their value and influence 
with fidelity. James Whitcomb Riley and 
Eugene Field, Maurice Thompson and Ed- 
ward Eggleston rapidly were graduated out 
of intelligent newspaperdom into wider circles. 
Scores of minor writers brought inspiration 
of no mean quality to pioneers and their 
children. Mark Twain rose like a meteor. He 
who harks back fifty or more years will 
recollect with a smile the work of George 
ix 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

Yenowine and George Ade, James Allison 
of Evansville and his brother, the famous 
"Picador" of near-by Louisville, — and later 
Walt Mason, William Allen White, Robert 
Kidson, S. E. Kiser, Wilbur Nesbit and count- 
less anonyms. Our old family scrapbooks 
verify their early favor, even amidst our 
elegant modernity. 

Mark Twain, Riley and Eugene Field 
raised the Mississippi Valley to a recognition 
for characteristic and original types as in- 
teresting as those of our East and South. The 
region widened when Roswell Martin Field 
added Kansas to the literary map with his 
stories of sunflower-land, shortly before the 
time when Garland became constructively 
clairvoyant. 

The two brothers Field were born in St. 
Louis, Eugene in 1850, Roswell in 1851. 
Their parents had emigrated from the East, 
the father being a successful lawyer. On the 
death of their mother when the children were 
five and six, respectively, they were placed in 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

the care of an elder cousin, Mary Field 
French, in Amherst, Mass., "a lady of strong 
mind and much culture," for whom they 
ever after preserved great affection. Tem- 
peramentally almost opposites, the boys were 
mutually devoted, and this attachment re- 
mained undisturbed throughout their lives. 
Eugene had bucolic instincts, while Roswell 
was, and stayed, a pattern of New England 
balance of views and manners. Eugene in 
time proved indifferent to systematic college 
education, except that he, like R. L. S., ac- 
quired by predilection good scholarship in 
Latin. Roswell received an impulse toward a 
career in law as a student at Phillips Exeter 
Academy and then entered the University of 
Missouri at Columbia. A patrimony, sub- 
stantial for those days, gave the brothers a 
desirable freedom in the choice of a career, 
and both chose journalism. Strong bonds of 
sympathy and habit carried them westward. 
From St. Louis and St. Joe, Eugene went to 
Denver and there began his brilliant career, 
xi 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

Roswell spent several years in editorial work 
in Kansas City and St. Louis and then went 
to Chicago where he conducted for a number 
of years a column, "Lights and Shadows," in 
the Evening Post. His preference for poetic 
form antedates that of Eugene. The spon- 
taneous joy and charm of the elder brother's 
creations was not Roswell's gift, but his poems 
rarely failed to bring out a good story or to 
create true idyl and drama. In 1891 the 
brothers joined hands in producing the now 
famous Horatian translations Echoes from a 
Sabine Farm, an event in American letters. 

A year later Roswell published In Sun- 
flower Land; Stories of God's Own Country. 
The publisher was F. G. Schulte, of Chicago, 
a man of excellent taste and discrimination, 
whose brief list of ventures included Garland's 
Prairie Folks and other midwestern classics 
later discovered and appreciated. In Sun- 
flower Land shares the fate of old amber: 
buried long years, the book deepened in color 
and charm and now has taken its deserved 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

place as a classic in the literary records of 
pioneer life, the countryside idyl, the dignity 
of small-town life and of plain and unsophis- 
ticated women and men. In 1922 Chicago 
bookmen began searching for this gem of a 
book, deploring that a large part of the edi- 
tion had been consumed in the McClurg fire 
in 1894. 

After this burst of healthy realism Roswell 
Field, in collaboration with his wife Henrietta 
(Dexter), composed six dramatic sketches for 
children. They were issued by the magnetic 
book-lover Way and his associate Williams, 
who vied with Stone and Kimball in pro- 
ducing books of a comely and original pat- 
tern. The turn of the century found our friend 
very active. In 1902 we had The Romance of 
an Old Fool, a counterpart in a way to James 
Lane Allen's famous Kentucky Cardinal ro- 
mance. The Bondage of Ballinger followed 
the year after; it was the result of hard work 
and certainly Ros well's favorite book. Indeed 
the gentle Ballinger is a perennial figure in 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

life, like the post-war colonel of the South, 
and the reader's heart melts with sad sym- 
pathy. A similar sentiment was invoked by 
Little Miss Dee ( 1904) . Both of these charm- 
ing little books went through several printings 
or editions. Madeline (1906) carried the ro- 
mantic strain still further, spicing it with 
esthetics and ideals that nowadays would be 
considered below the horizon of verisimili- 
tude, even though the world's great romancers 
still keep their charm, because we know that 
truth, even in literature, stands sky-high above 
reality. 

But Roswell Field steered his literary course 
straight into a morning breeze of pure realism 
when the Atlantic Monthly printed at the 
head of one of its numbers his powerful ex- 
hortation The Passing of Mother's Portrait 
(1901). The world then was prepared for 
many changes in personal and social life. 
Some of us elders still recollect the effects 
upon us by the first reading of that little story 
in the Atlantic, the topic of which was the 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

solidarity of family life, the preservation of a 
sacred tradition embodied in the portrait of 
a devoted mother, and the fate of the portrait 
at the hands of her children. 

The story was reprinted in expanded form 
in 1901 by William S. Lord, of Evanston, a 
man well versed in the knowledge of books 
and a clear-headed businessman. This edition, 
small and choice, quickly was absorbed. But 
the message, the exhortation, lives on. It 
has been repeatedly advocated that Mother's 
Portrait might well be included in the current 
lists of required reading for students in high 
schools and colleges. This suggestion has lost 
none of its propriety when we consider the 
violence that has been done to many of our 
forms of life during an era when it was for- 
ever asserted that well-nigh all American 
efforts and prophecies hitherto considered 
sacred and safe, had become futile. 

The Passing of Mother's Portrait remains 
Roswell Field's masterpiece. 

It also exhausted his efforts toward a con- 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

tinued literary production. He wrote a beau- 
tiful and sympathetic sketch of his brother 
Eugene, but withdrew gradually from active 
work and, after his wife's death, lived quietly 
in New York, a confirmed bibliophile growing 
old gracefully. In 1908 he unexpectedly in- 
herited a fortune and then retired to a man- 
sion in Morristown, N. J., seemingly satisfied 
with reading and philosophic meditation, the 
theater and his beloved Writers' Club. In 
December, 1918, the Spanish influenza, then 
rampant, prostrated him, and he passed away 
on January 10, 1919. 

Chicago then had centered its attention on 
other men, other interests, other things. 

Dofobs Club (d old fools over books) had 

ceased to exist, new faces and figures sur- 
rounded the veteran Opie Read at the Press 
Club. But the thoughtful and those historical- 
ly minded long remembered Roswell as the 
chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, an in- 
dulgent but serious companion of ardent 



THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK 

youngsters, a master of rhyme and rhythm, 
clever at improvisation. 

We still for a while, as his voice is remem- 
bered, shall retain his memory. What is more 
important is that in American literature he 
sounded the healthful note of our prairie-land 
ideals. In his best work the puritan and the 
pioneer spirits blended with grace. 
J. Christian Bay, 
Librarian Emeritus of the 
John Crerar Library. 



THE PASSING OF 
MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 



T/ie 

Passing of Mother^s 

Portrait 

I DO not exactly remember when I came to 
understand that the little old lady sitting op- 
posite me in the studio was my model. Por- 
traits, you know, like children have their slow 
process of mental development, and I cannot 
say precisely when my period of infancy came 
to an end and was followed by unbroken con- 
sciousness. It seems to me that the artist was 
tinkering with a flesh tint on my right cheek 
when I first began to experience the joy of 
living and to take notice, with the liveliest 
curiosity, of the things around me. Certainly 
from that moment I grew greatly interested 
in the little old lady, and watched her with 
the keen delight that led me to suspect there 
was a bond of the most cordial sympathy be- 
tween us. I fancy that even the artist himself 



THE PASSING OF 

could not have been more solicitous for her 
physical condition or the requisites for a suc- 
cessful sitting. Instinctively, from time to time, 
I appeared to know when things were not 
going right, and often I have said to my- 
self — with that consciousness I was unable to 
explain — "This is our off day," or "We are 
not keyed up to it," or "We shall have to do 
this all over to-morrow." It is most extra- 
ordinary what a sympathetic understanding 
exists between a model and a picture. If 
artists only had a little of our sensitiveness, 
our perception of wrong conditions, how 
much time and fruitless labor might be saved ! 
The little old lady, as I now recall her with 
my added opportunities of observation in the 
world, was not beautiful, although she had a 
certain dignity and strength of bearing that 
greatly impressed me at the time. It was her 
habit to rally the artist on her plainness, at 
which I greatly wondered, and to ask him to 
deal gently with the wrinkles which showed 
so plainly in her face and withering hands, 
2 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

for she was then about seventy years of age. 
I remember that she wore a funny old cap on 
her head, tied down under her chin with 
black strings; and that her gray hair was 
brushed rather severely down over her tem- 
ples. Her dress was of black silk — it may have 
been alpaca — and a bit of lace was around 
her throat, fastened with a cameo brooch 
which seemed to me then the most beautiful 
of all possible ornaments. I recollect with 
what a thrill I felt the artist painting in the 
lace around my throat and decorating me 
with the gorgeous cameo, and how I mar- 
veled at the skill with which such splendor 
could be accurately reproduced. Everything 
was new and joyous to me, and I had that 
feeling of intoxication which comes to every 
picture firmly persuaded it is a masterpiece. 

Notwithstanding the gentle dignity of the 
little old lady and her general air of reserve, 
there were times when she was loquacious, 
and then I became familiar with our family 
history and picked up many points which 
3 



THE PASSING OF 

were of extreme value to me at a later day. 
And as the work progressed, her daughter 
Caroline and her son-in-law George dropped 
in to make suggestions. And daughter Martha 
from the country, and a son from the West, 
and various other relations of near and remote 
degree, were summoned for consultation, and 
among them all I was subjected to many 
operations and alterations. My left eye was 
expunged and put in at least four times, and 
the expression of my mouth was changed to 
suit every individual taste. The artist bore 
with these suggestions with a patience that 
won my esteem and admiration, and I have 
never ceased to regard his profession with a 
feeling of the highest respect, coupled with 
the sincerest pity. But there is an end to all 
trials, even in a studio, and at last I was pro- 
nounced perfect and was borne triumphantly 
to my new home. 

George and Caroline lived, as I am now 
aware, in a pleasant but unfashionable quar- 
ter of the city, but in truth — for it was my 
4 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

first experience with any habitation except 
the studio — the dwelling, humble as it was, 
impressed me as a veritable palace. And when, 
gorgeous in my gilt frame, I was assigned to 
the position of honor on the wall of the parlor 
just across from the upright piano, I was 
fairly swollen with my importance and puffed 
up with unreasoning pride. George, even in 
those days, was a young man of excellent 
business prospects, steady and industrious, 
fully able to support in comfort his wife, her 
mother, the little old lady, and the two young 
daughters, Elizabeth and Bertha. Positively, 
to my inexperienced eye and modest taste, 
there was nothing left on earth to be desired. 
Ah, those were happy days! The memory 
of them remains to cheer me now that my 
gilt is gone, my luster has vanished. When- 
ever a visitor would come to the house 
Caroline would march her up in front of me 
and say proudly: "Did you ever see a more 
perfect picture than this of mother?" And the 
little old lady, with almost a girlish blush, 
5 



THE PASSING OF 

would look up at me, and shake her head, 
and say depreciatingly: "Now, Caroline, if I 
were you, I wouldn't say anything about it." 
And I? Well, I was so pleased with the com- 
pliments, and with myself, that it was all I 
could do to keep from jumping right out of 
the canvas. Really you cannot blame us por- 
traits for putting on a few extra airs occa- 
sionally. We do hear so much at one time and 
another that it is no wonder that our heads 
are turned, or that we droop with chagrin 
and humiliation. George — he was a jovial 
fellow, was George — quite fastened himself 
on my affections, for he often passed through 
the parlor when he came down to breakfast, 
and called out to me: "Hello, grandma," just 
as cheerily as if I were the real article, which, 
of course, just then I was not. How I smiled 
back at him at those times ! 

I suppose things must have run on like this 

for about a year. One morning the little old 

lady did not join us as usual, and all that day 

and the next day, and through the week, 

6 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

there was a great stillness in the house. And 
one night I heard the sound of weeping up- 
stairs, and very soon Caroline came down and 
threw herself on the sofa just under me, and 
gave way to her grief until George came in 
and very gently led her away. And two days 
later all the neighbors and friends assembled 
at the house, and when they left I heard the 
nurse tell the girl next door that they had 
taken the little old lady with them on her long 
journey. You see I did not know at that time 
what death was, and I thought it very kindly 
and beautiful to take such an interest in the 
journey of a friend. 

With the passing of the little old lady, the 
gravity of my new duties began to appeal to 
me more strongly. I may say that from this 
time I was awakened to a sense of obligation 
that I had not previously felt, and was drawn 
more closely to my family, whose tempera- 
ments and emotions I more clearly compre- 
hended. I noticed also, with some perplexity, 
that I had aged considerably in my feelings, 
7 



THE PASSING OF 

and that I seemed to be governed by a 
familiar spirit, and to possess an unaccount- 
able knowledge of the past, a phenomenon in 
psychology I am entirely unable to explain. 
This sense of responsibility was materially in- 
tensified when Caroline, in her first moments 
of loneliness and grief, would stand before me 
with clasped hands and say mournfully : "You 
are all that is left to me of her." At such 
moments I tried to comfort her, and I really 
believe that in a great measure I succeeded. 

We were all very happy together, and it 
was pleasant for me, after the children had 
gone to bed at night, to be in the little parlor 
with George and Caroline, and hear them 
discuss our brightening prospects. It was be- 
coming more and more evident that George 
was prospering in his business, for I noticed 
new furniture coming into the house, and I 
was much gratified to observe that when 
Caroline suggested improvements that ap- 
peared to me, with my old-fashioned ideas, 
outrageously expensive, George always cheer- 
8 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

fully fell in with her plans, and good- 
naturedly humored her in every indulgence. 
The sight of so much domestic bliss was a 
perpetual pleasure, and often, after the family 
had retired at the close of a charming home 
evening, I confided to my little crewel friend 
and neighbor, God-Bless-Our-Home, my con- 
viction that a happier group of persons and 
pictures never existed in the world. 

I shall not attempt to dwell on the eight 
happy years I spent in the little parlor. It is 
true that from time to time I thought I saw 
a tendency on the part of the family to get 
away from the old traditions, but as Caroline 
used to say, "The world is growing, and we 
must grow with it," and the excursions doubt- 
less were not so serious as I feared. I fancied 
too that Caroline was away from home much 
more than formerly, and I gathered from the 
conversation of the ladies who called in the 
afternoon that she had become a woman of 
considerable importance in the neighborhood, 
though I freely confess that I did not under- 
9 



THE PASSING OF 

stand a word of their talk about clubs and 
papers and conventions and federations, and 
a hundred things that were never heard of 
when I was a girl. It was very hollow and 
profligate to me, and God-Bless-Our-Home 
quite agreed with me that mothers and wives 
could be much more profitably employed in 
their domestic duties. George, too, was more 
engrossed with his business, and presently I 
began to miss those cheerful evenings when 
we sat around in a cosy family circle, and 
talked shop or simple home pleasures. Eliza- 
beth was now a handsome girl, about eighteen 
years of age, and two or three evenings a 
week were surrendered to her and the young 
men who came with frequency and in great 
numbers. Their discourse was positively of 
the shallowest nature, and spoke of a vain and 
idle life utterly opposed to the ideas that pre- 
vailed when I first received attention. 

One night — I think it was the first evening 
in six since we were all together in the little 
parlor — George said to Caroline: "Well, my 
10 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

dear, I closed the bargain to-day for the house 
on the avenue." Such a scene of congratula- 
tion! Caroline embraced George, and George 
kissed Caroline, and little Bertha clapped her 
hands, and Elizabeth said : "Thank heaven, 
I shan't be ashamed now to receive com- 
pany." I could not understand what the child 
meant, for to me nothing could be more beau- 
tiful than our parlor with its new furniture 
and spick-span rugs. I said as much to my 
neighbor on the left, "A Cloudy Morning on 
Lake George," but he rudely laughed at me. 
"Cloudy Morning" was a supercilious fellow, 
who had lived several years in various rooms 
of an art gallery, and affected a certain 
superior air and knowledge. However, to be 
perfectly candid, I was as pleased as the rest, 
for I argued that if we could all move into a 
more spacious house, such as had been de- 
scribed, we should be the more contented to 
remain at home, and I was compelled to 
admit that we were beginning to get just a 
little cramped. 

11 



THE PASSING OF 

But that period of moving! Shall I ever 
forget it? For twenty-four hours I was lost in 
a blinding dust, and then for three whole 
days I stood up against the baseboard of the 
dining-room with my face pressed against the 
wall, utterly unable to see a thing that was 
going on. What I suffered during this period 
of retirement only a woman can understand. 
The din was terrible, and the humiliation of 
feeling articles of family use pressing against 
my back wore on my nerves. I certainly 
needed all the composure and serenity of age 
to pass through that ordeal, and I fear that 
another day of torture would have led me to 
disgrace myself before the household effects. 

It had never occurred to me that I should 
not occupy my old position on the parlor wall 
of our new home, and I was therefore much 
surprised and startled when I heard Caroline 
say: "What shall we do with mother's pic- 
ture, George? Of course it will never do to 
hang it in the drawing-room." And Elizabeth 
exclaimed with more vehemence than seemed 
12 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

perfectly respectful: "Well, I should say not!" 
I did not know then what they meant by the 
drawing-room, but the imputation that any 
place was too good for me was not to be 
passed over without resentment, and I was 
furiously indignant, as any self-respecting por- 
trait might well be. My son-in-law, George, 
acted as if he felt somewhat ashamed of 
taking part in such a disgraceful discussion, 
for he shrugged his shoulders petulantly, and 
replied: "O, don't bother me with these little 
matters. You women must attend to all such 
things." Little matters, indeed! It was lucky 
for him that my back was turned, and that he 
could not see the fire that flashed from my 
eyes. 

So it was finally decided that I should be 
hung back in the library, and, indeed, this 
was quite an agreeable compromise, for I 
found to my great pleasure that it was a most 
cheerful and inviting room, tastefully fur- 
nished, bright and cosy, and altogether re- 
lieved of that terrible primness and fashion- 
13 



THE PASSING OF 

able stiffness that characterized the parlor, or, 
as they called it, the drawing-room. "Now, 
this," I said to myself, "is something like. 
Undoubtedly this will be the family sitting- 
room, and here I shall be constantly with my 
dear ones, and removed from the presence of 
uncongenial visitors." For you must remem- 
ber that of late I had grown distrustful of 
Caroline's acquaintances, many of whom 
were women of the emptiest pretensions and 
the shallowest intellects. 

For a week or more I was quite happy and 
contented amid my new surroundings. Caro- 
line had seen to it that I was carefully dusted, 
and that my frame was rubbed and scrubbed. 
And once or twice I thought I saw the old 
lovelight come back into her eyes as she 
looked up at me smiling down on the library 
table, but I dare say I was mistaken, for I was 
optimistic and credulous in those days and 
disposed to believe the best of my relations. 
And I fancied that George gave me a good- 
natured nod now and then, although he never 
14 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

said "Hello, grandma," as in the good old 
times. But one evening — George and Caroline 
had gone upstairs and I had composed myself 
for the night — who should follow Elizabeth 
into the library but young Mr. De Vivian. 
Now I never could abide De Vivian, who was 
one of these pert young gentlemen of fashion 
who assume that they adorn and honor every 
circle into which they are admitted, and who 
presume upon their insolence to swagger be- 
fore their betters. Why Elizabeth tolerated 
him I am sure I never could understand, for 
in my day he would have been laughed at for 
a fop and a dandy. Perhaps it was because 
he was descended from the De Vivians who 
had peddled their way to wealth a few genera- 
tions before, but he made it quite clear that 
he was much prouder of his money than of 
the honest and industrious manner in which 
his ancestors had acquired it. For this reason 
alone any grandchild of mine should have 
despised him. Young De Vivian lolled in an 
easy-chair before the grate, and I caught him 
15 



THE PASSING OF 

several times staring at me in the most im- 
pertinent and offensive manner. You may 
depend upon it that I returned his gaze with 
a haughtiness that would have rebuffed a 
fellow less presumptuous and less self-satisfied. 
After one of my most scornful looks he turned 
to Elizabeth and drawled: 

"I say, Elizabeth, who is the queer old 
party on the wall in the cap and sackcloth?" 

Never in my life was I so angry. Never was 
our family pride so outraged, and I do not 
know what prevented me from stepping out 
of my frame and buffeting him then and 
there. But I controlled myself, for I was sure 
that Elizabeth would rebuke him with the 
greatest manifestation of displeasure, even if 
she did not rise and command him to leave 
the house and not return. Conceive, then, my 
amazement, my discomfiture, when my own 
grandchild positively blushed, and, nervously 
fingering a paper-knife, stammered — for the 
words must have choked her: 
16 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

"That? Why, yes; that, I believe, is one of 
mamma's distant relations." 

And this from my granddaughter, whom, 
when a little child, I brought through the 
croup after the doctors had given her up — 
the baby I had watched and petted, the girl 
I had loved and guided! I suppose I was an 
old fool, but, do you know, at that moment 
something seemed to swim before my eyes; 
the whole room was blurred, young De Vivian 
had vanished, and I was back in the nursery, 
crooning to a little babe and thanking God 
that so fair a child had been given to comfort 
us and make us happy. And I thought of the 
little old lady lying peacefully under the snow 
in the silent city, and I wondered if it is spared 
to her to know what is sometimes said of us 
after we are gone by those we have loved. 

You may believe that I did not close my 
eyes that night, and I know that the strain 
must have told on me, for when George came 
down to breakfast he remarked to Martha, 
the maid, that the old lady — meaning me — 
17 



THE PASSING OF 

looked as if she needed scouring. This may 
have been true, but I hold that it was not a 
gracious or considerate way of putting it, and 
I maintain that these little frivolities of speech, 
even from one's family connections, are much 
to be deplored and reproved. I had thought 
it all over during the night, and I had come 
to the conclusion that Elizabeth would be 
much ashamed of her conduct; so I was fully 
prepared to forgive her with all my heart at 
the first genuine manifestation of repentance. 
For I reasoned that she was young and 
thoughtless, and had been bullied into disre- 
gard of her own flesh and blood by young De 
Vivian, for whom my aversion was stronger 
than ever. "Her heart is all right," I argued, 
"and I must make allowance for a little 
foolish oversensitiveness." 

Elizabeth was in a frightful humor that 

morning, and I saw with many misgivings 

that the flippant remark of De Vivian had 

wounded her sorely. She looked at me vicious- 

18 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

ly, by way of preparing me for the worst, and 
then she said to Caroline: 

"Mamma, why don't you take that awful 
daub out of the library?" 

I know very well what would have hap- 
pened fifty years before if I had presumed to 
address such a suggestion to my mother, and 
I waited for Caroline's reply with more 
anxiety for Elizabeth, notwithstanding her un- 
bearable conduct, than for myself. I could 
hardly believe it was my daughter speaking 
when she answered in a tone of apology: 

"I don't think I should call it a daub, 
Elizabeth, but I must confess that it is pretty 
bad, and I quite agree with you that we 
should get it somewhere upstairs. It is cer- 
tainly bad form, if not excessively vulgar, to 
flaunt one's family portraits continually be- 
fore one's friends." 

"Particularly when they are such mon- 
strosities as that," said Elizabeth. "It humili- 
ates me every time I invite anybody into the 
19 



THE PASSING OF 

library and have to endure the look of amuse- 
ment at the sight of that picture." 

Humiliated by the presence of her grand- 
mother's portrait! And it was only a few 
years since I had been thought worthy to 
hang in the parlor and to be admired by all 
the friends and neighbors! 

"I dare say you are right," said Caroline, 
"and we must have it moved right away, 
though it does go against my conscience" — 
she had a conscience, after all — "to seem to 
be lacking in respect to mother's memory. 
Perhaps it is more respectful to put it away 
where it will not excite derision. I think I'll 
have William hang it in my room. Family 
portraits are really much more in keeping in 
bedrooms." 

"Mrs. Benslow doesn't keep her mother's 
portrait in the bedroom," spoke up little 
Bertha. "She has it hanging right in the front 
hall where everybody can see it the first 
thing." I could have hugged the dear child 
for her brave words. 

20 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

"Mrs. Benslow's mother was a Colonial 
Dame," said Elizabeth; "that's quite another 
thing." 

"I don't see what difference that makes," 
replied the stout little Bertha; "a grand- 
mother's a grandmother, isn't she?" 

"Yes, and a child's a child," said Elizabeth, 
angrily, "and when you have grown a little 
more you will appreciate a good many things 
you know nothing about now." 

"Well," went on little Bertha, defiantly, "I 
may grow a little more, but I hope I'll stop 
when I let fellows like Mr. De Vivian tell me 
how I shall hang my pictures in my own 
house." 

"There, there, children," said Caroline, 
"don't say anything more about it. You are 
both right in a way, but Elizabeth is the older 
and knows the world better than you do. 
Bertha. I think we shall all feel much more 
comfortable when this subject of discussion is 
removed." 

I fancy that Bertha saw the way I smiled 
21 



THE PASSING OF 

upon her, and I believe that somewhere near 
the spirit of a little old lady was hovering to 
guard her from knowing that sort of world 
that cherishes its ancestors merely from pride 
of place and pomp of condition. But after 
William had taken me down from the library 
wall and hung me upstairs over Caroline's 
bed, I felt my anger vanishing and I was 
easily persuaded that Caroline had reasoned 
well and that the atmosphere was much better 
and more wholesome. I found no trouble in 
convincing myself that at last I was where the 
old-fashioned grandmother should be, in the 
family circle and away from influences in 
which she could take no pleasure. And yet it 
was not long before I discovered that I was 
not wholly right in my conjectures, and that 
the bedroom of the fashionable present is not 
the old family gathering place of the past. I 
am compelled to admit that I was desperately 
lonesome, for Caroline used the room only to 
dress and sleep in, and as she was frequently 
away half the night, and was always tired and 
22 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

indifferent in the morning, the room, so far 
as any pleasure from her society was con- 
cerned, might have been barred and sealed 
up. 

To add to my annoyance, the crayon por- 
trait of George's Uncle Ben grinned at me 
from the opposite wall. Ben Chisholm and I 
were children together, and we had quarreled 
from the very moment we met. Even the 
marriage of George and Caroline did not 
harmonize our differences, for he had gone 
from bad to worse, and from a quarrelsome 
and peevish young man had developed into 
a cynical and crusty old bachelor. In fact, he 
was so thoroughly ill-natured and unpleasant 
that it was useless to attempt to get along 
with him. Up to this time Ben had always 
occupied an inferior position in the family, 
and I presume in his crayon coloring and 
round black walnut frame he would not have 
been tolerated had he not left George quite a 
sum of money when he died. It gave me a 
terrible shock, after all these years, to see him 
23 



THE PASSING OF 

grinning and chuckling to himself, and I shall 
never forget our first conversation at the time 
of the unfortunate reunion. 

"Well," said Ben, after William had gone 
away, and leering most hideously, "you've 
come to it, have you?" 

"I don't know what you mean," said I, 
with just as much indifference as I could 
command. 

"I guessed it was only a question of time," 
went on Ben, ignoring my coolness and 
chuckling fiendishly. "Of course it was natural 
enough for you to suppose that the fate of an 
obstinate and disagreeable bachelor uncle 
could never overtake a nice, considerate, 
amiable mother, but I knew it was sure to 
come." And he laughed so uproariously that 
he jarred a Madonna and two Magdalenes 
off their level. 

"How dare you?" I exclaimed. I was be- 
ginning to lose my temper, for I understood 
very well what the fellow meant. 

"O, come now," said he, "don't put on this 
24 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

haughty manner, for really you are in no 
position to affect superiority. I'll confess that 
for a number of years you could afford to 
assume the grand air, but now that you've 
come down, or rather up, to my station, it is 
much more becoming to accept your lot with 
dignity and composure — as I do, for in- 
stance." And he grinned so maliciously that 
it made me just a little faint. 

"I repeat," said I, but with less confidence 
than before, "that I do not know what you 
mean by this gibberish about 'fate' and 'time,' 
and you will oblige me by stopping that grin- 
ning and chuckling and by behaving like a 
reasonable being." 

"Then I shall have to explain," he con- 
tinued, with such a frightful leer that the two 
Magdalenes shivered and huddled together, 
and the Madonna humbly cast down her eyes. 
"It is hard, isn't it, for two respectable old 
ancestors to confess that they have been 
shoved out of the way because their family is 
ashamed of them?" 

25 



THE PASSING OF 

"I don't believe it." 

'Tray don't, by all means, if it makes you 
feel more comfortable. I didn't believe it for 
a long time myself, though I had my sus- 
picions from the start. You see, my dear old 
friend, the unwelcome truth was fairly forced 
upon me, and I didn't begin with the parlor. 
Perhaps that is why it came easier to me. I 
started in the back sitting-room two months 
before the funeral, and went up on the second 
floor shortly after the will was read, notwith- 
standing my efforts to do what I could to 
help along the family. Isn't that amusing? 
You observe that I do not spare myself and 
run the risk of spoiling a joke." 

"It is very likely," said I, "that the family 
was anxious to put you out of the way, for 
anything that would remind anybody of you 
would be necessarily painful." I spoke with 
as much sarcasm as I could command, but 
it did not seem to have the slightest effect. 
Ben Chisholm always was exasperating in his 
imperturbable malice. 
26 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

"Yes, I was somewhat trying, I dare say, 
but their disposition of me does not explain, 
so far as I can see, why dear mother should 
be shunted first into the library and then into 
an upstairs bedroom. That is what is worry- 
ing me, dear friend." 

"You don't mean to insinuate" — 

"I don't mean to insinuate anything. I 
mean to say with tolerable distinctness that 
our dear children have outgrown us. Jack, of 
course, fell down first, and Jill came tumbling 
after." And he laughed loudly at his coarse 
jest. 

Happily for me, the conversation, humili- 
ating as it was in the presence of the three 
strange ladies, was interrupted by the entrance 
of the maid, though I must say for the ladies 
that their sympathy was wholly with me, and 
that they have since acknowledged that for 
many weeks Ben Ghisholm had kept them in 
a condition of terror by his ungentlemanly 
conduct, his ribald jokes, his boisterous laugh- 
ter, his malicious remarks, and his perpetual 
27 



THE PASSING OF 

trifling with the most sensitive feelings. This 
incident gave me fresh occasion to wonder 
why people are so thoughtless in the arrange- 
ment of their pictures; why they will persist 
in associating portraits that are thoroughly 
uncongenial, thereby inviting strife and pro- 
moting unhappiness. I remember that "The 
Lost Lamb," who was my neighbor in the 
library, confided to me that for two years he 
had lived in unremitting agony because not 
ten feet away the art dealer, with whom he 
was living, had kept a pack of wolves. It is 
most extraordinary that the sensibilities of 
pictures are never taken into account, and 
that through ignorance we are forced to ex- 
perience such wretchedness. 

Now it would be useless to deny that the 
poison of Ben Chisholm's discourse had en- 
tered my system. Try as I might, I could not 
divest myself of the suspicion that there was 
much truth in what he had said, and that I 
had been put out of the way because I was 
no longer considered acceptable to a family 
28 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

that had made such advancement in the busi- 
ness and social world. In vain I argued the 
baseness, the unreasonableness of such con- 
duct; in vain I brought up a thousand objec- 
tions to such an interpretation. Caroline barely 
noticed me, although I employed every artifice 
to attract her attention; she was so taken up 
with her worldly prospects, her clubs, her 
receptions, and her never-ending round of 
evening gayeties that I often wondered who 
was running the house down stairs, whether 
George had his breakfast on time, and if any- 
body was looking after the poor fellow's com- 
fort. I do not know what would have become 
of me in those hours of distress if it had not 
been for the sympathy and soothing words of 
the Madonna, who constantly stood between 
me and the odious fellow, Ben Chisholm, and 
sustained me with much comforting advice 
and loving cheer. 

The Madonna assured me that retribu- 
tion would certainly overtake Ben, and that 
prophecy was speedily fulfilled; for one day, 
29 



THE PASSING OF 

when the maid was dusting the room, the 
sustaining wire broke and the crayon fell to 
the floor with a great crash. Caroline came 
hastily in, and perceiving a large rent over 
Ben's eye, peevishly told the maid to take that 
old picture out of the room and keep it out. 
And when the maid very naturally inquired 
"Where?" she said impatiently, "Anywhere." 
At this very climax of his misfortunes, when 
even I felt a touch of pity, Ben's malevolence 
did not desert him, and his wound served 
only to accentuate the devilishness of his leer. 
As the maid bore him away I could not re- 
frain from looking at him — though more in 
pity than in satisfaction — and I heard him 
whisper: "You'll be next, my lady. It won't 
be long." I trembled so violently that I feared 
Caroline would perceive my agitation. 

The days immediately following were very 
comforting and delightful after my unhappy 
experience with Ben Chisholm, for I had 
many and long talks with the three ladies, and 
the Madonna never ceased to give me admir- 
30 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

able counsel from her wonderful storehouse 
of knowledge. She spoke long and earnestly 
of the evils of wealth and fashion, of the 
temptations that beset the worldly rich, of the 
quickness with which a life of frivolity dries 
up the human heart. And she besought me to 
be prepared at all times for such changes in 
fortune, whether good or bad, as might be 
appointed. In truth I had learned to be quite 
ready for any emergency, for I saw that I had 
nothing to expect from Caroline but neglect, 
and as for others of the family they could not 
have avoided the room more faithfully had 
it been a pest-house. 

For these reasons I was tranquil, even 
cheerful, when Caroline, suddenly pointing to 
me one morning, said to the maid : "Mary, 
you may take that picture down to-day, and 
hang it in the sewing-room." And yet I own 
that I had curiosity to know why this change 
was so unexpectedly suggested, and in the 
few moments of grace I asked my friend, the 
Madonna, if she could venture any explana- 
31 



THE PASSING OF 

tion. The good woman looked at me with an 
expression of ineffable sweetness, and said 
very sympathetically: 

"I have told you, my dear sister, that when 
a woman is plunged into the vortex of fash- 
ionable life she quickly loses those finer sen- 
sibilities, those more wholesome emotions, 
which are the enduring charm of woman- 
hood. She becomes the slave to worldly con- 
ventions, the prey to unworthy shame, the 
victim of an unwomanly dread of idle gossip 
and the sneers of the frivolous. Let us talk no 
more of this matter, and let me beseech you 
to continue to bear with fortitude the trials 
that may still await you." 

I perceived that the Madonna forbore to 
speak further out of regard for my feelings, 
and, indeed, there was little need of explana- 
tion from that source, for I soon gathered 
from the conversation of the maids that Caro- 
line was preparing for a grand evening recep- 
tion, and that the room was to be given over 
to the women for the removal of their wraps 
32 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

and the putting on of the final touches. It 
came over me all at once that I was banished 
not merely because in my sober garb I did not 
fit in with such splendor, but because Ben 
Chisholm was right, and my family was 
ashamed of the comments of these worldly 
fashionables. That was what the Madonna 
meant by "dread of idle gossip," and that 
was why she had refrained from further ex- 
planation, and had bidden me summon my 
fortitude. Time was when I might have wept 
for such unfilial conduct, but how would idle 
tears have availed? And so I bore myself 
bravely with just that old dead pain at the 
heart I have never quite succeeded in banish- 
ing. 

There was always something hopeful in my 
nature, and the more I looked at it the more 
I welcomed the change from the comparative 
loneliness of the bedroom to the cheery society 
of the sewing-room. At least some members 
of the family would be likely to be visible at 
any hour of the day, and the fact that the 
33 



THE PASSING OF 

telephone had been placed in that apartment 
was an assurance that I should keep up with 
all the proceedings of my dear ones — they 
were still dear to me in my calmer moments — 
and seem to have a part in their occupations 
and pleasures. For I may explain that the 
emotion of curiosity and active interest in 
affairs are not denied to us pictures; that we 
are sociable in disposition, and keenly alert 
to what is going on around us. I was vastly 
cheered, moreover, as Mary bore me to my 
new stopping place, to note, smiling at me 
from above the closet door, my little crewel 
friend, God-Bless-Our-Home, whom I had 
not seen for several years — in fact, since we 
were neighbors and cronies in the old- 
fashioned parlor. I had mourned her as dead, 
and here she was, a trifle weather-beaten per- 
haps, but otherwise as cheerful and stimulat- 
ing as ever. I greeted her with warmth, and 
when Mary had left the room I asked her to 
tell me how she had fared, and why we had 
never heard of each other. 
34 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

"I know it is unbecoming to complain," 
said my little crewel friend with a sigh, "but, 
as you are aware, it is hard when one has 
presided over a parlor, and stood for as much 
as I represent, even on my face value, to be 
exiled without a word of apology or explana- 
tion to a back room upstairs. I made the mis- 
take of believing — possibly because I was 
young and brilliant, and confident of the 
strength of my sentiment — that I should at 
least outlive a generation and retain my 
supremacy. I did not take into account the 
fact that fashions change, that the world is 
growing more worldly, and that a principle 
that is appropriate enough for a modest 
family with religious leanings is hardly suited 
to the surroundings of persons of wealth and 
fashion." 

"Surely," I exclaimed, aghast at this decla- 
ration, "you do not mean to say that George 
and Caroline have repudiated you as an evi- 
dence of change of principle?" 

God-Bless-Our-Home smiled. "No, I do not 
35 



THE PASSING OF 

mean exactly that. I presume that if they 
were cornered by a direct question they would 
admit that they still respect the sentiment I 
endeavor to teach. But it is no longer custo- 
mary in polite circles to parade ostentatiously, 
and every day in the week, an appeal to 
Providence. At least not in my kind of garb. 
Ben Chisholm — do you remember Ben Chis- 
holm?" 

I replied rather shortly that I did, perfectly. 

"Ben Chisholm was here for a few days 
and he took a disagreeable and pessimistic 
view of it. He endeavored to convince me 
that such sentiments as I promulgate are all 
very well for the poorer classes who have 
plenty of time for religion, but are not even 
amusing to those who can hardly find hours 
enough in a day and night for what they con- 
sider more pressing duties. And he dwelt 
rather maliciously, I thought, on the fact that 
my old place in the parlor is now given up 
to a painting wholly unscriptural and, I fear, 
not altogether decorous. But I prefer to be- 
36 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

lieve that the shift was not so much the resuh 
of a change of heart as of the recognition of 
things in their proper places." 

"And that is why you are over the closet 
door in a back room?" said I, with a touch 
of bitterness. 

"Wherever I am," answered God-Bless- 
Our-Home very sweetly, "it is enough for me 
to know that I am not responsible for any 
failure of my mission, and that it is not my 
fault that there are other things more beauti- 
ful and alluring to the world than myself." 

"I was ashamed of my outburst and begged 
my little friend to forgive my hasty words. 
And I asked her to tell me about the sewing- 
room; whether Caroline and the girls assem- 
bled there for family consultation, and worked 
and talked together as in the good old times 
when I was a girl just learning the domestic 
arts. 

Again God-Bless-Our-Home smiled, but, it 
seemed to me, a little more sadly. "Times 
have changed, my dear friend, since you were 
37 



THE PASSING OF 

young, and you forget that necessity for labor 
with the needle no longer exists in your 
family. It is true that I do see your daughter 
and the girls occasionally, for they come here 
to be fitted, and then the telephone is always 
a source of distraction. I must say that I have 
no special fondness for gossip, and yet I can- 
not help overhearing much that is said, both 
pleasant and unpleasant. You know that it is 
through the sewing-women, who work by the 
day or week, that our fashionable ladies pick 
up much if not all of their general informa- 
tion on personal matters, and in this way I 
have acquired a stock of knowledge surprising 
in its extent if not in its accuracy." 

And with this introduction God-Bless-Our- 
Home proceeded t o regale me with the 
choicest bits of family information. I heard 
how Caroline had become a woman of the 
most tremendous importance in club and 
fashionable life, and how she constantly be- 
rated George for his indifference to social 
affairs, and bewailed his indisposition to play 
38 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

an active part in the gay world in which she 
moved. I learned that George had accumu- 
lated a vast fortune, which served only to 
make him more restless and dissatisfied than 
ever, and that while Caroline and the girls 
gave themselves up to their pleasures he be- 
came more engrossed with his business, find- 
ing in the pursuit of wealth the greatest 
happiness. That Elizabeth had given her troth 
to young Mr. De Vivian pained but did not 
surprise me, but that the wedding had been 
put off until the family moved into the new 
house gave me much disquietude. I dreaded 
the thought of the fate in store for me, and 
with trepidation I communicated my fears to 
my friend. 

"It is true," said God-Bless-Our-Home, 
"that our family feels that it has outgrown 
this house and its surroundings, and that it 
has made preparations to move into a more 
elegant home in a still more fashionable quar- 
ter of the city. I have heard Caroline say as 
much to her friends over the telephone, and 
39 



THE PASSING OF 

George has frequently come in at night to 
call the architect and contractors to hurry 
them along with the work. I do not know 
what will become of us, but I try not to think 
of unpleasant things." 

Much more from time to time God-Bless- 
Our-Home told me of the family doings, and 
often I picked up interesting matter from the 
gossip of the sewing-women and the frequent 
conversations over the telephone. For Eliza- 
beth was accustomed to spend many minutes, 
idly it seemed to me, in calHng up young Mr. 
De Vivian and speaking of things of a most 
frivolous and empty character, such as I was 
ashamed to hear discussed in the presence of 
my little friend. 

Thus several months went by without 
special incident, and we were beginning to 
think that possibly we were settled for the 
winter, when one morning Mary entered the 
room bringing our former companion, the 
Titian Magdalene. My pleasure at the sight 
of her was somewhat tempered by the dis- 
40 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

covery that she was in unusual depression of 
spirits, and was laboring with the most pain- 
ful emotions. As often as I tried to ask the 
reason of her coming my courage failed; but 
I was not long kept in suspense, for, having 
partly recovered from her agitation, she spoke 
with great frankness. 

"Everything is in confusion," said the Mag- 
dalene. "The house is torn up; my sister, the 
Correggio, has been carried I know not where, 
and the Madonna is lying face downward on 
the bedroom floor. Strange men have entered 
the house, laying lawless hands on what they 
could reach, and it was through their care- 
lessness that I received this abrasion of the 
skin on my right arm. I know that a great 
upheaval has come into our lives and I 
shudder for the consequences to us all." 

"Let us not be discouraged," said God- 
Bless- Our-Home, with the utmost cheerful- 
ness, "but let us hope for the best even when 
we naturally fear the worst. Perhaps it will 
not be so bad as we think, and perhaps we 
41 



THE PASSING OF 

shall all come together in our new abode, for 
I see from what Magdalene tells us that 
another period of restlessness has come and 
that we must shortly go to another home." 

The time was even shorter than she 
thought, for hardly had the words escaped 
her when the strange men broke into the 
room, and laid violent hold on us, and tore us 
from the wall, and bore us away down stairs 
where lay the Madonna in the shameful con- 
dition described by Magdalene, with certain 
secular and low-class prints and engravings 
piled ignominiously on her frame. I shall not 
linger on the disgrace and confusion of those 
awful hours. Nor shall I dwell on the humili- 
ating manner in which we were all jumbled 
into a moving van, wholly regardless of pro- 
priety and dignity, and jostled about in a 
most agonizing journey. I remember that the 
Madonna, covered with dirt and hardly rec- 
ognizable in the accumulation of two days' 
dust on the littered floor, never lost her ad- 
mirable composure, but earnestly besought us 
42 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

to be patient and to bear our misfortunes 
with humility. However, I could not refrain 
from crying out against the inhuman treat- 
ment to which family portraits and old and 
constant picture friends are so wantonly sub- 
jected. 

When we had come to our journey's end 
and had been carried roughly into the house, 
which was indeed a palace in beauty and 
extent, the Madonna warned us to prepare 
ourselves for any indignity. "For I perceive," 
said she, "that this dwelling is on a scale of 
grandeur far beyond our condition." A malig- 
nant chuckle greeted this remark, most hum- 
bly and piously uttered, and turning we saw 
for the first time that Ben Chisholm had been 
put down in our corner. Whereat we all 
shuddered. 

"You ought not to expect anything," said 
he coarsely, "you and those two women there, 
for you are only copies; but look at me. I'm 
an original. And yet I dare say that I have 
as little to hope for as any of you. But I don't 
43 



THE PASSING OF 

complain. Vm used to it and I know the 
people. You'll allow me to add that it's about 
time for you and dear mother to scrape up a 
fair knowledge of our precious family." And 
he grinned so diabolically that we turned 
away sick at heart. There is nothing so ter- 
rible in periods of wretchedness as a malicious 
philosopher. 

For thirty-six hours we lay on the floor, 
while one by one our companions were picked 
up and borne away. I was at the bottom of 
the heap w-ith my face resting — not inappro- 
priately, all things considered — on a scrubbing 
brush, and bearing many grevious burdens, 
of the nature of \vhich I knew nothing, on my 
back, when George contemptuously punched 
me with his foot and asked: 

"What are you going to do %vith all this 
truck?" 

Think of that! Mother's portrait, a 
Madonna, a Titian, and a Correggio — truck ! 

'T really don't know," answered Caroline. 
"There is so much I wish we had destroyed 
44 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

or thrown away before we left the old place. 
Most of it is fit only for the ash-barrel." 

"Here is grandmother's picture," said 
Bertha, vainly endeavoring to rescue me from 
the pile. "I recognize the frame. Certainly 
you don't mean to throw that into the ash- 
barrel." 

"No," replied Caroline, "I cannot throw it 
away, although I sometimes wish I could. It's 
an atrocious likeness, always was, positively 
too frightful to hang where anybody can see 
it." 

"I thought you used to like it," said Bertha, 
innocently. I believe I have said that Bertha 
was my favorite grandchild, and a girl of un- 
common penetration. 

"I never liked it, though I admit that I 
tolerated it before." 

"Before she became rich and fashionable," 
said I to myself, bitterly; "why doesn't she 
finish her sentence?" 

"So I think for the present," continued 
Caroline, "we'd better stow it away in a safe 
45 



THE PASSING OF 

place. William, suppose you carry this picture 
up to the top floor and put it in the trunk- 
room. And while you are about it you may 
as well dispose of the rest of these old traps." 

Indeed ! So hereafter I was to be regarded 
a part of the "truck" and "old traps," a pretty 
ending of my dream of a happy and honored 
old age ! As William took me out of the room 
I could not forbear calling out in my indig- 
nation: "Remember, Caroline, I am all that 
is left to you of her!" But if she heard me 
she gave no indication, and, in truth, I am 
inclined to think that my reproach would 
have carried little weight, so completely had 
her nature been changed by the vanities and 
pomp of her new life. 

Behold me then in the trunk-room, a good- 
sized but dark and poorly ventilated apart- 
ment just off the ball-room at the top of the 
house. The room was fairly filled with a great 
variety of household effects, which, I recall, 
were groaning and complaining loudly as 
William threw me somewhat contemptuously 
46 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

and very roughly into a corner behind a large 
box. I lost through this treatment quite a 
section of gilt from the right of my frame. It 
was altogether too dark to recognize my 
neighbors, still I knew that the Madonna 
and the two Magdalenes and God-Bless- Our- 
Home were my companions in exile, and it 
was not many minutes before I discovered 
that Ben Chisholm was in a distant corner, 
mercifully held down by two dress-suit cases 
and a steamer- trunk. But nothing could re- 
press that fellow's malevolence of spirits. 

"And so we are all together once more," he 
piped up in his shrill, squeaky voice. "Well, 
if this isn't real pleasant and homelike! I'm 
sorry you ladies cannot get a better look at 
me — the lighting arrangements here are exe- 
crable! — for I think this new hole in my left 
arm would interest you. And just to think 
that after so many days and months of separa- 
tion we should be reunited. Wasn't it thought- 
ful of George and Caroline to arrange for 
this charming meeting? Do you suppose there 
47 



THE PASSING OF 

is any danger they will tear us apart again?" 
We were too much occupied with our own 
grief to answer, and after chuckling to him- 
self a few minutes he went on: 

"So this is the trunk-room and rubbish- 
closet. Isn't it cozy in here? A trifle warm in 
summer, perhaps, but think how comfortable 
we shall be in winter. I hope you ladies don't 
mind mice" — the Correggio gave a little 
scream — for I distinctly heard a mouse 
gnawing over by my right hand. Personally I 
don't bother about mice, but I have under- 
stood that women are afraid of them, and I 
deem it my duty to warn you in time. It 
seems rather strange that we should have 
everything possible up here except a mouse- 
trap. Perhaps if mother would speak about it 
to her thoughtful and loving daughter she 
would provide one." 

This sarcastic reference to my unfilial child 
gave me a more bitter sense of my misfortune 
and excited the indignation of my com- 
48 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

panions, who violently reproached Ben for his 
ill-timed levity. 

"What's the use of pretending to so much 
virtue?" he grumbled. "You all know that we 
are in the last ditch and have nothing to 
look forward to except the ash-heap or the 
kindling-box. Let us make the best of it while 
it lasts. At the worst we are next to the ball- 
room, where we can hear the music, and at 
other times we shall have plenty of leisure for 
reflection over a giddy and more or less ex- 
citing past. I'm going to be philosophical, but 
I must confess that this steamer-trunk is un- 
commonly heavy." 

There was a good deal of sense in what 
Ben said, and while I do not wish to give him 
credit for anything useful or helpful, he did, 
however unwittingly, cheer us up. He was 
right, too, in his conjectures as to the music, 
for Caroline began straightway a series of 
lavish entertainments, and three or four eve- 
nings of every week the strains of the dance 
came plainly to us, and the chatter of voices 
49 



THE PASSING OF 

and the sound of laughter made us forget our 
isolation. At times I though I could detect 
Caroline's voice, and her tones invariably set 
me to thinking of the quiet evenings in the 
little front parlor when God-Bless-Our-Home 
was the ruling spirit and when life was the 
brightest and happiest and best of all possible 
conditions. At these times I think I should 
have wept had it been possible for me again 
to weep. 

But it must not be thought that we had 
seen the last of Caroline. I remember the first 
day she opened the door, and entering the 
room, began to peer around. My heart gave 
a great leap, and I thought to myself: "Per- 
haps she has come for me." In this I was 
mistaken, for after rummaging eagerly a few 
minutes — barely giving me a glance — she 
seized an old teapot of lacquered tin and bore 
it away triumphantly. Another day she came 
again, and this time she carried out an old- 
fashioned gilt mirror of the preceding century. 
To these succeeded a dingy pewter plate and 
50 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

a rusty sword, which, I remember hearing, her 
great-great-grandfather wore in the Revolu- 
tionary War. Then we realized that Caroline 
had become infected with the craze for 
antiques, and great hope sprang up in the 
trunk-room, and there was much speculation 
as to our respective chances. Ben Chisholm, 
however, refused to be dazzled by the pros- 
pect. "Whatever happens, there's no show for 
you or me, old mother," he said gruffly. 
"We're neither one thing nor the other, and 
we'll be lucky if they let us stay on here. When 
we go out we go to the garbage-can." 

I was not to be discouraged by this dreary 
croaker. It came to me how, when I hung on 
the wall in the library, my neighbor — he was 
one of the old masters; I cannot remember 
which one — told me he had lain many years 
in a dismal attic, wholly forgotten and un- 
recognized. And one day a strange man, 
prowling about, picked him up and carried 
him to the light and detected his almost price- 
less value. In a few hours he was in a brilliant 
51 



THE PASSING OF 

room, eagerly stared at by hundreds of ad- 
miring connoisseurs of art. Whereupon I 
thought: "Why should not I have similar 
fortune? Why should I give way to dejection 
and hopelessness? It may be true that Caro- 
line is dead to me or I am dead to her, and 
that she and Elizabeth and Bertha, and their 
children, and their children's children, may 
pass away while I am lying forlorn and for- 
gotten and covered with dust in this dark 
corner. But may it not be that in generations 
to come I too shall have a part to play and 
shall begin a new life? May I not be recog- 
nized as a forebear of a distinguished house, 
a Daughter of the Civil War, a Dame Before 
the Empire, and be carried proudly to the 
drawing-room or the most illustrious chamber 
to be venerated by my descendants and ad- 
mired by their friends and kinsmen?" 

In this timid hope and expectation I am 
living. When the house is quiet, and grum- 
bling Ben has sulked off to sleep, and those of 
my companions who are left have found the 
52 



MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

sweet oblivion which comes to us all alike, I 
try to picture the glory that awaits me and to 
content myself with the belief that I shall be 
great and famous and happy. But my heart 
keeps asking me, Will it pay? Is the flattery 
of future generations worth the few years of 
love that should now be mine? Will all the 
exultation I may feel in the ages to come 
atone for this bitter pang of knowing that 
those who are dearest to me rejected me? And 
constantly in these sad moments I am travel- 
ing back to the old-fashioned parlor, and I 
see the peaceful face of the little old lady as 
she looked that afternoon when they bore her 
away on her long journey. And my heart tells 
me that it would be far better to have gone 
with her, and passed beyond while love was 
strong and faith was unshattered. 



53 




This is the end of the story n^ nju nju 
THE PASSING OF 
MOTHER'S PORTRAIT 

Written by Roswell M. Field, with a biographical 
introduction by J. Christian Bay, frontispiece and 
end-papers by James Swann, and of which 989 
copies were printed on Lineweave Text, set in 11- 
point Baskerville type for Violet & Hal W. Tro- 
villion in the spring of 1948, by Trovillion Private 
Press, at sign of silver horse, in Herrin, Illinois, 
and all copies signed and numbered. 

This is Copy No. ^ *^ V" 





SWA< 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



015 785 984 5 



